A Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) system is an all fiber-optic system that replaces the traditional copper cable originating in a telephone central office and terminating at the customer premise. The replacement of the legacy copper infrastructure with new fiber-optic cables not only improves service reliability but provides a vast amount of bandwidth for new and faster media services. In an FTTP system, an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) installed at the customer premise converts an optical signal from a single optical fiber originating at the telephone central office into customer services. More particularly, the ONT is capable of providing telephone, high-speed Internet, and video services.
FTTP systems are customarily tested for service reliability, provisioning, disaster recovery, feature verification, and the like prior to field deployment for providing telecommunications services to customers. In a typical FTTP test-bed installation, ONTs and Battery Backup Units (BBUs) are installed as elements of systems under test. ONTs are tested for a number of items, including but not limited to: reliability (such as call processing), features (i.e., testing of Caller ID for example), requirements verification (such as. for example, phone ringing that meets industry specifications, and voice quality), verification of high-speed Internet upstream and downstream rates, video quality, service compatibility (interoperability with various modems, set top boxes, and the like), disaster recovery, and power loss and recovery.
The BBU is the sole source of power for the ONT at the customer premise and is similar to power sources of home security systems. The BBU is normally AC powered but is provided with a twelve-volt DC battery. Should there be a commercial power outage, the BBU will switch to battery power so that the customer will continue to be provided with telephony service. When AC power is restored, the BBU will automatically switch from battery backup to AC operation.
Heretofore, the ONTs and BBUs to be tested have been mounted on a backboard in a standard central office (CO) relay rack. FIG. 1 illustrates such an ONT installation and shows a plurality of ONTs 10 mounted on a first or front side of a wooden backboard 12, the wooden backboard being secured to a standard relay rack. Upright posts 14 and 16 of the relay rack are visible to the left and right of the ONTs. One ONT 10a is shown with an access door 10b ajar.
FIG. 2 illustrates a standard prior-art BBU installation showing a plurality of BBUs 18 secured to a second or rear side of the same wooden backboard 12 of FIG. 1. Upright post 16 of the relay rack appears at the left of the BBUs. Typically, ten ONTs are mounted on the first side of the backboard and an equal number of BBUs are mounted on the second side of the backboard, each BBU being electrically associated with its respective ONT. Cabling between each pair comprising an ONT and a BBU is routed through pre-drilled openings in the backboard. With, for example, ten such pairs of ONTs and BBUs per relay rack, significant numbers of CO relay racks are required in the space allotted when a large number of such units are installed.
It would be desirable to provide a more efficient use of space by installing a consolidated mounting structure that would at least double the capacity of ONT/BBU installations.